The White Lady of Amherst
by Argella
Summary: The Doctor and Rose go back in time to 1860s Massachusetts and visit the poet Emily Dickinson, who is being haunted by strange nightmares.  Set shortly after The Christmas Invasion; small spoilers for most episodes in Series 1.
1. Part I

_**Disclaimer: Everything belongs to BBC. I speak and write in American English, so I'd appreciate it if any errors I made with British English are pointed out to me.**_

_**Many thanks to Meiyl for being an excellent beta.  
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><p><strong>The White Lady of Amherst<strong>

_**Part I**_

Rose eagerly poked her head out of the TARDIS and looked outside. A chill breeze blew across her face, carrying the smells of wild grass, damp earth, and a hint of apples. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The source of the fragrance became apparent when she looked around and saw that they had landed in the middle of a large orchard. It had to be high noon from the way the sunlight streamed straight down through the orange-yellow leaves. The plump, glossy apples that weighed down the branches around them looked nearly ready for harvesting.

'So!' she exclaimed. 'Where and when are we?'

'Massachusetts, North America, Earth, eighteen-sixty!' the Doctor announced, appearing behind her and clapping a hand to her shoulder. 'Well—at least I think that's the approximate year. And,' he admitted, 'we might have landed as far south as Virginia—or possibly in Belize. But I'm relatively certain this is Massachusetts.' He gestured to the surrounding trees. 'Looks very New England to me.'

'This is lovely,' Rose remarked. 'Nice change of scenery from that dull planet we did last week.'

'Oi, that wasn't a dull planet. It was made entirely of graphite! Crafted by the Rbiduna Qzilk of Delta Scorpii in the sixth age of—'

'It was dull,' she interrupted firmly. The Doctor gave a halfhearted pout, but brightened up when he sniffed the apple-scented air. He stepped out of the TARDIS and shrugged into his coat as another breeze swept through the orchard. Rose decided that she wouldn't need a jacket, since she was already fairly comfortable in her long-sleeved blouse; what she was wearing on her legs, however, was somewhat out of place. 'Think I might have to change my wardrobe a bit?' she queried, gesturing to her denims and running shoes.

The Doctor wasn't looking at her; his attention was fixed on an apple-laden branch above his head. 'Mm? Why?'

'I was under the impression that girls didn't wear trousers in the nineteenth century,' Rose responded dryly. 'Don't you remember when you—well, the other you—had me wear that evening gown when we visited Charles Dickens?' She did love that dress. But, she reasoned, it was too posh to be appropriate anywhere but in a city.

He shrugged in response. 'Oh, the nineteenth century's full of people who don't follow fashion conventions... Artistic types, philosophers, revolutionaries, you know. If anyone asks, say you're a French authoress.'

Rose hopped out beside him, smirking. 'And what are you, my copyeditor?'

'That might be very fitting, actually! An author and editor going to visit a poet...'

She raised her eyebrows inquisitively. 'A poet?'

'Yes, we're here to meet a poet.' The Doctor turned his gaze to her excitedly as he pulled the TARDIS door closed behind them. 'A brilliant poet—I think you'll take a liking to her. From what I've heard, she's a delightful person. Very spirited. A bit peculiar—' he cracked a grin— 'but aren't we all?' He beckoned to her and they headed down the avenue between the trees.

'A female poet from New England...' Rose racked her brains for possible names, but she'd never learned much about American poetry, especially not from this era. 'Who is she?'

'Oh, people 'round here call her "the Myth."' The Doctor absently kicked at a leaf pile as they walked past it. 'She's a bit of a recluse, see. Hardly ever leaves her house, never shows her face to visitors.'

'Then how do you know she'll want to see us?' Rose asked dubiously.

Kick. Another flurry of dry leaves scattered from the Doctor's heels. 'She won't, probably. But we're visiting her anyway, 'cos I want to meet her.'

'All right, then...' Rose supposed the Doctor wouldn't allow a little thing like extreme introversion to get in the way of meeting—whoever this woman was. 'What's her name? You didn't say.'

'Emily Dickinson.'

'Sounds sort of familiar,' Rose muttered, trying to remember all the poetry she'd had to study in secondary school.

'You may have heard of her,' the Doctor said brightly, 'even though she isn't as world-famous as a lot of other poets. She gained some international popularity in the late twentieth century...' He furrowed his brow as they emerged from the orchard into the full sunlight, gazing at the hilly farmland around them. 'I even have an edition of her work from the thirty-fifth century that was published by the Earth History Institute of the Thuban system... Where did I put that book? Ah, right, that's the one I spilled coffee on... got to get a new one sometime—'

'Oh! Wait a minute...' Rose did remember having read a couple of Dickinson's poems in school. '_Because I could not stop for Death_—did she write that one?'

The Doctor nodded, looking pleased. 'Yes! I quite like that one—she always has such brilliant metaphors. Ooh, have you heard this one? It's a favourite of mine...' He buoyantly began to speak in rhythm with their footsteps. '_Nobody knows this little Rose— / It might a pilgrim be / Did I not take it from the ways / And lift it up to thee,_' he recited, taking her hand and lifting it skyward as though to illustrate the verse. Rose laughed.

'If you're taking the mickey, I don't appreciate being called "little." Or "it,"' she admonished, giving him a small shove. He imperiously lifted an eyebrow, but his eyes were twinkling. 'So have you memorised loads of her poems?'

'Eh, a fair few. Most of them are all rhymey and metered and such... tend to stick in your head.' He shoved his hands into his pockets to warm them against a gust of wind. 'She wrote hundreds of them, you know. Nearly two thousand... Wonder how many of them she's written by now?'

'We can find out the date once we get into town.' Rose pointed to a cluster of buildings about a kilometre distant, on the other side of a wide field. 'Speaking of which, do you know what that town is called?'

'Hmm...' The Doctor pursed his lips in concentration. 'If this _is_ Massachusetts, and we're not too far from where we're meant to be, I believe that would be the town of Amherst.'

'Oh, quit your joking. You know we're not in Belize.' Rose squinted appraisingly. 'There might be a hundred buildings there. How are we going to find her house?'

'I'm sure everyone knows where the Myth lives. We'll just ask around...' He closed his eyes briefly, inhaling the crisp autumn air. 'Ah! Beautiful day for a long stroll, wouldn't you say?'

'You could have parked closer,' Rose pointed out.

'I meant to park out here,' the Doctor huffed. 'I didn't want anyone to see us arriving. And this way we can enjoy a leisurely walk into town, eh?'

'It would probably be bad to materialise in the village square and cause a major disturbance,' Rose conceded wryly. She swung her arms and skipped a bit, feeling energised by the freshness of the air. 'It's not far, anyway. We'll be there in a few minutes.'

'Or...' The Doctor's face lit up with a mischievous smile. 'We could get there faster!' Without giving her a chance to respond, he shot forward across the meadow, his coattails streaming behind him. Rose shouted indignantly and, laughing, sprinted to catch up with him.

When they reached a road leading into the town, they stopped, giggling and gasping for breath.

'That was brilliant. I think you won,' the Doctor panted. 'Oh, excuse me, sir!' He waved down a man driving a cart past them. 'Do you know where we may find the residence of the Dickinsons?'

The old man slowed his horse. 'The Dickinson Homestead? It's near the middle of town. Just follow the main street and you'll find it.'

'What does the house look like?' Rose asked him as she and the Doctor fell into pace beside the man's cart.

He tugged at his bushy moustache, thinking. 'It's quite large... a mansion, I suppose. Two storeys with a tower room, and columns out front.' He gestured with his riding crop as though to illustrate the house's grandeur. 'If you fail to find it, ask someone the way to the Homestead. Everybody in town knows where it is.'

The Doctor smiled brightly. 'Thank you, good sir. And would you be so kind as to tell me today's date?'

'The fifteenth,' the old man answered, bemused.

'Of what month?'

'October, of course.'

'Yes, yes. And the year?'

'The year of our Lord eighteen sixty-one,' he chortled. 'What, man, is this some sort of a test?'

The Doctor nodded. 'That's it. I was only seeing if you really knew what you were talking about.'

The man laughed heartily. 'So now you see I'm not at all mad?'

'Definitely not, sir,' Rose agreed with a grin.

He doffed his hat to her. 'I thank you for your assessment, milady.'

'Well, then!' The Doctor turned to Rose. 'Let's go see the daughter of the house.'

'Whoa!' The old man stopped his horse in surprise. 'Daughter, you say? Do you mean the Myth?'

Rose nodded. 'We'd like to meet her.'

The man shook his head. 'That's not likely to happen,' he told them seriously. 'She never sees anyone. Not even her friends, so they say.'

'That's all right. We're better than friends.' The Doctor took Rose's arm and waved to the old man. 'We'd best be off. Thanks again!'

'No trouble at all,' he replied with a small shrug, and rode off down the road. Rose and the Doctor followed him a ways behind until they reached Amherst's main street, a wide avenue lined with young trees and grand wooden buildings.

They walked along it for a while, looking for the mansion that the man had described. Then the Doctor pointed to a particularly large house some distance ahead. 'There. I think that's the place.'

Rose turned to him. 'You think so? It would be rather stupid to knock and find out it's the wrong house.'

He shrugged. 'Can't hurt to try, though. To the Homestead! Or—' He waved his hand dismissively. 'You know, to what I think is the Homestead. But I'm pretty sure that's it. I have a feeling!' Rolling her eyes, Rose walked up with him to the front steps of the house.

The Doctor rapped smartly on the door five times. Almost immediately, a grim-looking maidservant opened it. 'Hello! Is this the Dickinson residence?' the Doctor asked her with a winning smile.

She frowned in response. 'Yes, sir, it is. May I ask who has come to call?'

'I'm the Doctor,' he said with a respectful nod of his head.

The maidservant looked suspiciously at Rose's heavily kohled eyes and dark blue jeans. 'And who are you?'

'This is Mademoiselle Rose... Taillon,' the Doctor quickly introduced her. 'She's an authoress. French,' he added in an exaggerated whisper, glancing askance at his companion. Rose suppressed the urge to roll her eyes again. At least the surname he'd made up sounded reasonably close to 'Tyler.'

She dipped her head forward as the Doctor had done; it would probably just look silly if she tried to curtsey. 'Er—Bonjour,' she greeted the serving woman, with a smile she hoped was polite.

The woman still gave off an air of disapproval, but she seemed to accept the Doctor's cursory explanation for Rose's outlandish appearance. She blinked, her mistrustful look turning into one of aloof indifference. 'What is your business here?'

'We're here to see Mademoiselle Dickinson,' Rose said briskly. She decided not to try too hard to affect an accent, because she knew she wouldn't be able to keep it up. And anyway, she thought, it was plausible that a French lady might have learned to speak English like a Londoner.

The Doctor cleared his throat. 'The _elder_ Mademoiselle Dickinson, that is,' he clarified. Rose glanced at him inquisitively, wondering how many Dickinsons lived in this house.

The woman's expression of distaste returned as she flicked her sharp gaze back to the Doctor. 'Miss Emily Elizabeth, you mean? You should know that she absolutely refuses to see visitors.'

'Oh, yes, we know—but she'll want to see us!' the Doctor assured her, fumbling for the psychic paper. He flipped it open smartly after managing to extract it from his coat pocket. 'We're here on important business.' The woman bent close to the document to read it. Her eyebrows lifted with mild interest as she scanned the paper.

'Ah... I see. Very well, then. Come in, since you've travelled all this way...' She backed into the house and stepped aside to let them enter. Rose and the Doctor glanced at each other as they shut the door behind them, but they couldn't pause long enough to read the paper and find out who they were supposed to be.

They obediently followed the maidservant as she led them through a hallway into a handsomely furnished parlour. The Doctor made his way to a small sofa near the window and plunked himself down onto it; Rose delicately sat beside him and tried to act ladylike. The woman remained standing stiffly in the doorway. 'Would you please tell Mademoiselle Dickinson that we have arrived?' Rose asked her.

'She knows you are here, I'm sure, miss,' she replied in a bored voice. She raised her eyes to the ceiling, in what must have been the direction of Emily's room on the upper storey. 'However, this past month Miss Emily has been somewhat... indisposed. Instead, I could ask Miss Lavinia to speak with you on her sister's behalf. Would that be acceptable, Doctor...?' She waited for him to provide his name.

The Doctor contentedly leaned back on the sofa. 'That would be lovely. Thank you.'

The woman frowned slightly, but did not prompt him further. 'I'll also bring in some tea,' she added with a careless wave of her hand as she exited the room. The Doctor watched her go, drumming his fingers absently against his knees.

Once she was gone, he extracted his reading glasses from his coat and pushed them onto his face, then scooted closer to Rose and leaned in to show her the psychic paper. 'Hmm,' he said pensively, tongue between his teeth. 'Well, look at that! Seems I'm an editor after all.'

Rose scrutinised the paper, which to her surprise displayed a long note written in a formal-looking hand.

_My dear Miss Dickinson:—_

_This note reaches you by way of my good friend the Doctor, a fellow editor with whom I have long held correspondence and who has recently accepted my offer of a post at the Republican. I took the liberty of showing him the poem you kindly included in your most recent letter to me, for I found it most captivating. He was so impressed by the beauty and skill of your verse, as was I, that he became very intent upon meeting you;—therefore I bade him deliver this note to you with my recommendation of his excellent character._

_He is accompanied by his niece, who is visiting him from abroad. She is quite an amiable and charming young lady who, I am told, much aspires to the poetical arts, and wishes greatly to meet an accomplished poetess such as yourself. Forgive me if I have been presumptuous in sending them all the way from Springfield to meet you;—but I sincerely hope that you may enjoy the pleasure of one another's company. With much respect and deepest affection_  
><em>Yours ever faithfully<em>

_Samuel Bowles_

'Wow. I didn't know it could show that many words at once,' Rose remarked. 'If this Samuel Bowles is a real person, I wonder if he really writes that small?'

The Doctor folded the psychic paper closed again and stashed it in his pocket. 'I would guess that there is a real Samuel Bowles, and that he's a particular friend of the family.' He nodded toward the entrance of the room. 'That woman wouldn't have just let in anyone brandishing a police badge, I reckon.'

'Yeah,' Rose agreed. 'The Dickinsons seem like pretty important people, don't they? Probably no one comes here without an appointment, unless they have a really good reason...'

'Or a letter of recommendation,' the Doctor added, waggling his eyebrows. 'Makes us sound rather posh.'

'So does a name like Rose _Taillon_.'

'I did my best,' the Doctor said petulantly.

Rose poked him in the shoulder. 'We wouldn't have to pretend I'm some ultra-sophisticated French person if you had just let me change into a skirt and put up my hair before we arrived.'

'But we might have to run from monsters,' he pointed out. 'Skirts are rubbish for running from monsters.'

She eyed him sceptically. 'You expect us to have to run from monsters?'

'Well, not really. But you never know.'

'Shh,' Rose hushed him as the maidservant came back in with a tea tray, followed by a young-looking woman wearing a sensible dress. The maid set down the tray on a low table and threw the two of them another suspicious glance before stalking out of the room.

The young woman, who looked to be in her late twenties, sat down across from them on a fine wooden chair. 'Eleanor tells me you are called Miss Taillon,' she said to Rose. 'I am Lavinia Dickinson. How do you do?'

'Quite well, thank you. Pleasure to meet you, mademoiselle,' said Rose, bobbing her head. 'Oh, and this is the Doctor.'

'And what is your name, Doctor?'

He crossed his legs casually. 'I'm just called the Doctor.'

Lavinia looked slightly perplexed. 'All right, then... Doctor. Eleanor said you were here on important business?'

'That's right,' Rose answered. 'We came here to talk to your sister.'

Lavinia's expression suddenly darkened. 'Many people who come here wish to harass my sister. She does not see visitors. Anything you have to say to her, you will say to me, and I will pass on your message to her if I do not deem it to be a waste of her time.'

'We don't want to _harass_ her. We just want to talk to her,' said Rose.

'We're admirers of her poetry,' added the Doctor.

'You know about Emily's poetry?' Lavinia looked shocked.

Rose passed her the psychic paper. 'Here. We were sent by Mr Samuel Bowles.'

Lavinia took about twenty seconds to read the short letter. Her demeanour turned friendly again. 'Well, if Mr Bowles believes that Emily would want to meet you, then I suppose she wouldn't mind my suggesting the idea...' She glanced to the tea tray on the table where Eleanor had placed it. 'Oh, would you two like some tea?'

'Here, I'll pour for you,' the Doctor said to Rose, taking the little china teapot. He poured a steaming measure of tea into a cup and stirred in just the right amount of sugar—Rose was pleasantly surprised that he remembered how much she liked. 'How do you take your tea, Miss Lavinia?' the Doctor asked as he poured another cup.

'Thank you, you're very kind,' Lavinia said smilingly. 'No sugar, please, and a hint of cream.'

Rose sipped once from her cup. Having heard about the alleged horrors of American tea, she half-expected it to taste awful, but it was all right—hot and nicely bittersweet, if a bit weak.

The Doctor didn't take any tea for himself after handing Lavinia her cup. 'So will we be able to meet your sister?'

Lavinia's brow furrowed. 'I'm afraid Emily hasn't been feeling very well this month. I doubt she will consent to descend from her chamber, even to converse with guests sent by a dear friend of hers.' She laughed softly. 'Why, even if Mr Bowles himself were here on a visit, I am sure she would remain ensconced upstairs and refuse to speak to him.'

The Doctor looked intrigued. 'She hasn't been feeling well, you say? Is she ill?'

Lavinia shook her head. 'I do not know the exact nature of that which troubles her. She does not tell me everything, of course. But I have reason to believe that her sleep has been disturbed. I have often heard her awaken during the night to light a lamp and scribble down a few lines, and she seems quite unsettled during the day...'

'Do you think anything has put her under stress lately?' Rose asked.

Lavinia looked at her strangely. 'Are you serious, Miss Taillon? Everyone has been under stress lately, I should say.' She sniffed. 'We might have a civil war on our hands, after all. President Lincoln has just this May called for over forty-two thousand volunteer troops to fight the southern rebels—or haven't you heard?'

Rose, stunned, felt a momentary annoyance that the Doctor hadn't bothered to tell her there was a war on in this time period. 'Oh—er... I do not get much news of foreign affairs at my home in France. We have also had political unrest, you see...' She sipped at her tea again to hide her unease.

'Ah. These are indeed troubled times,' Lavinia said, nodding solemnly.

'Has she said anything to you in particular about what worries her?' the Doctor asked her curiously.

She shook her head. 'Emily doesn't like to dwell on her troubles in conversation with others. I suppose she may write about them instead.' She sighed. 'But I might be able to guess what it is. Some of our dearest friends are joining the Union army.'

'Oh, dear.' Rose's face fell; she couldn't help wondering whether these friends of the Dickinsons were fated to die in the war. She set down her teacup.

'These sleep disturbances,' the Doctor interrupted, looking deep in thought. 'Has she been sleeping more than usual? Less?'

Lavinia considered as she placed her own half-empty cup back on the tea tray. 'More, I think. She often falls asleep where she sits, in the middle of the day. It's most unusual.' She frowned worriedly. 'And she seems to have nightmares even in the daylight.' All of a sudden, her back went rigid and she narrowed her eyes. 'I don't even know why I am telling you all of these things about my sister. If you are some kind of psychiatrist'—she looked severely at the Doctor—'then you will kindly cease your questioning. My sister is not, nor has she ever been, mentally disturbed. She has her quirks, but she is not a madwoman.'

'We know,' Rose assured her.

'If she's mad, we all are,' the Doctor said, his eyes boring into Lavinia's. 'I think she's brilliant, not mad. But I'm concerned that something may be... affecting her... beyond mere wartime depression.' He sucked in a breath through his teeth, thinking. 'Nightmares... nightmares... Does Emily usually have nightmares, Lavinia?'

'Not usually,' Lavinia admitted. ''She only has nightmares very rarely, most of the time. But as I said, this past month, she—'

'Hasn't been herself,' Rose finished quietly.

Lavinia was absently wringing her hands. 'She's usually quite a happy, cheerful soul. Solitary, but happy. When we were children, Emily was the most—' She cut herself off with a soft laugh. 'Again, I don't know why I am entrusting you with all this.'

'Don't worry. We're trustworthy,' said Rose with an earnest smile. 'We're sorry about Emily. We only wanted to tell her how much we admire her work—I mean, the poem that Mr Bowles showed us.'

'Nightmares,' the Doctor continued to mutter. 'This isn't good. I need to see Emily,' he abruptly declared.

'Impossible,' Lavinia replied curtly. 'She sees no one.'

'Not see her, then. But I need to talk to her. I think I know what's the matter,' the Doctor said with an urgent tone. 'Please. I'm a doctor; I can try to help—'

'What sort of doctor?' Lavinia asked primly.

He waved a hand in a broad gesture. 'Oh, all sorts.'

Rose cut in before the Doctor managed to confuse Lavinia too much. 'Could we please just talk to her? She doesn't have to show her face.' Rose had noticed a painted wooden screen at the far side of the room. 'We could sit behind that, if she likes.'

Lavinia's shoulders slumped slightly. 'I really don't think she'd be amenable to the idea, Miss Taillon—'

'Just tell her that Mr Bowles sent us.' The Doctor seemed confident that Mr Bowles would be their ticket to an audience with Emily. 'Here, take her this,' he said, handing Lavinia the psychic paper with Samuel Bowles's fake letter.

Lavinia nodded as she took the paper. 'All right. Please wait here. I think she would like for both of you to hide behind the screen, if she does come down to speak with you...'

'Yes, fine,' the Doctor said. Lavinia stood up, bowed her head toward him and Rose, and turned to leave.

'Come on, Rose,' the Doctor said, slapping his knees and standing up as Lavinia exited the room. Together they carried the screen from the corner and spread it out to block the line of sight between the sofa and the doorway, then sat down again to wait.

Rose whispered to the Doctor. 'You said you might know what's the matter. Why do you think she isn't just depressed?'

The Doctor rested his chin on his hands. 'This doesn't sound right. Not right at all. Rose—' He turned to her, wide-eyed and fretful. 'In 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote in a letter to a friend that something had been terrorising her for months... It must be these nightmares. They aren't normal, Lavinia said. And falling asleep during the day...' He ran a hand agitatedly through his hair. 'This war—the American Civil War—started on April twelfth of this year. Lavinia just told us that the President called the Union soldiers to arms in May. So why would Emily only start to have terrible nightmares in September?'

Rose shrugged. 'I dunno... What d'you think?'

Before the Doctor could answer, a soft voice called out from the other side of the screen. 'Doctor. Miss Taillon. I see from this letter that the two of you have been sent by my dear friend Mr Sam.'

'That's _Emily Dickinson!_' the Doctor mouthed excitedly to Rose, who smiled and nodded, giving him the thumbs-up.

'Yes, Mademoiselle Dickinson,' she answered. 'It is an honour to speak to you.'

A soft laugh sounded behind the screen. '"Mademoiselle!" "Honour!" That's quite enough of that, my dear. I am a country spinster, not a princess.'

'Ah, but some people call you a lady, don't they?' said the Doctor. 'The White Lady of Amherst.'

'Yes... Such a solemn thing, to be a White Lady.' They could tell that Emily was smiling, even though they couldn't see her face. 'Have you two merely come here to talk about me as though I'm some fantastical creature, or do you actually have something of importance to discuss?'

Rose answered somewhat hesitantly. 'Your sister tells us that you haven't been well lately.'

Emily huffed out a breath. 'No, I suppose I haven't. And what would your diagnosis be, Doctor?'

The Doctor looked startled at the question. 'Er—well—I suppose the war has been a great weight on all our minds. Terrible business.'

A rustle; perhaps Emily had shifted in her seat. 'Is that really the best that a Time Lord can tell me? That I'm worried about the southern rebellion?'

At the words 'Time Lord,' both Rose and the Doctor jumped. 'How—how did you know—?' Rose started to ask.

'This curious paper seems to show something different to Lavinia than it does to me,' Emily said slyly. 'When Vinnie burst into my room, talking of two friends sent by Sam Bowles, she thrust this paper at me and told me to read his letter. Imagine my surprise when I read not a letter, but the words "A Time Lord and his companion have come to relieve you of your terror!"'

The Doctor and Rose simply blinked. 'Terror? D'you—do you mean the nightmares?' Rose asked after a few seconds of stunned silence.

'Yes. But the terror is not only while I'm dreaming—I feel it all the time now. Something always at the corner of my eye, at the edge of consciousness...' They heard Emily take a deep breath. 'If you really are a lord of Time, Doctor, are you also a master of dreams?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Miss Dickinson, that paper shows you only what you want to read. We didn't come here expecting to fight a terror...' He set his jaw. 'But I swear I will do everything in my power to rid you of whatever is haunting your dreams.'

They heard another rustle of cloth, and suddenly a pale hand appeared at the edge of the screen, pushing it aside to reveal a woman in a white dress with shining dark brown hair. Her frame was small and delicate, almost birdlike. She looked young, like her sister, though she must have been at least thirty. Her full lips wore a small smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. Rose and the Doctor leapt to their feet.

Emily waved them back down to their seats. 'That's quite enough of that. Looking at me will not turn you to stone.' Her brown eyes twinkled. 'The only reason I keep all this mystique about me is to deter the frightfully boring townspeople from visiting me, though I cannot keep them from visiting my mother and father.'

'Do they live here, too?' asked Rose as she and the Doctor slowly sat down again.

'Of course,' replied Emily. 'This is my father's house. I and my brother and sister grew up here. Vinnie and I never left. Austin didn't really leave, either, since he lives next door with his wife.' She brushed at her knees. 'But enough chatter about my family. Who are you, really? Are "the Doctor" and "Rose Taillon" simply _noms de guerre?_'

Rose smiled sheepishly. 'I'm actually called Rose Tyler—but his name really is the Doctor.'

'For all intents and purposes,' the Doctor added.

Emily gave a stately nod. 'And what, pray tell, is a Time Lord?'

The Doctor gestured to himself. 'I am.'

'Then what are you, good sir?'

'Well... I'm a time traveller.'

'You also?' Emily asked Rose, who nodded. 'Well, I suppose that would explain your strange attire. Do women really dress like that where you come from?'

Rose shrugged. 'Women wear whatever they like.'

Emily shook her head. 'Until today, I could not have believed all that you tell me. But now I have seen a magical paper that seems to have intimate knowledge of my private life... Unless this is another dream, I must accept that you have come from the future, and that whatever is causing my terror is decidedly unnatural.' She yawned. 'Do excuse me—I find myself falling asleep at very odd times of the day lately. I can barely keep my eyes open at this moment.'

The Doctor looked alarmed. 'No—Emily—don't fall asleep!'

Emily drowsily waved a hand at him. 'I am used to nightmares now, Doctor. They cannot harm me, no matter how discomfiting they are...' Her head began to droop against the tall side of her armchair.

'If you fall asleep, you might not wake up again! Emily, listen to me!'

Rose quickly got up and tapped Emily gently on the shoulder. 'Please, Miss Dickinson. Please stay awake, at least until the Doctor can explain what he means.'

Emily gave a bleary nod and blinked hard. 'Very well. I must admit that I find this unusual somnolence somewhat disturbing... Doctor, what is happening to me?'

He hesitated awhile before beginning to answer. 'When... when humans—when you fall asleep, your mind... doesn't stay in this world.'

Emily's bright eyes widened despite the heaviness she felt in her eyelids. 'Yes... I always thought that there is another world that we visit in our dreams.'

'It's called the Seretti dimension.'

'The what?' Rose asked. 'You're telling me that our minds actually go to a different _dimension_ while we sleep?

The Doctor gesticulated, trying to find the words to explain. 'Not always. But you know, when you have your most vivid dreams—the ones that seem completely real, the ones you remember in detail—they have that amount of depth because they actually take place on a higher plane. Human consciousness has this strange ability to enter the Seretti dimension in a dream state...'

Rose touched Emily's shoulder again to keep her from drifting off. 'Are you hearing this, Miss Dickinson?'

Emily shook her head slowly in amazement. 'How intriguing... But if, as you say, our minds often enter this—other dimension, what is causing the abnormality in my dreaming?'

'Things live in that dimension,' the Doctor said in a low voice. 'The masters of dreams aren't Time Lords, Emily. They're Vishklar.'

'Vishklar?' Rose was curious about the creatures who lived in this dream dimension. Had she ever seen one in her own dreams?

'The Vishklar are—sort of like architects of dreams,' the Doctor went on. 'Most of them are harmless. They like to play with the human minds that sometimes wander into their dimension. They don't do any harm, most of the time. But others...' He grimaced. 'Others are strong enough to actually take energy from human minds and gain a corporeal form.'

'That doesn't sound pleasant for the human,' remarked Emily, struggling to hold onto the Doctor's words.

'No, not at all,' he agreed. 'Emily, if a Vishklar has been in your nightmares since last month, it must be getting stronger...' He shook his head abruptly. 'I have to find some way to stop it. Rose, we're going back to the TARDIS.'

'Hey, wait just a minute!' Rose frowned at him. 'We can't just leave Emily here to the mercy of this dream monster thing!'

'We're not,' the Doctor said. 'I can try to take the TARDIS into the Seretti dimension so that we can look for Emily's consciousness and—'

'What d'you mean, _try_ to take the TARDIS there? You mean we might end up somewhere completely different?'

'It's difficult to get to the Seretti dimension!' the Doctor exclaimed.

'How hard could it be? I thought you just said humans can send their minds there while they sleep!'

'I'm not human, Rose!'

The Doctor immediately looked as though he wanted to swallow his words. He and Rose looked apprehensively at Emily, thinking of how to explain his comment—but Emily was fast asleep.

'Oh no, no no no...' The Doctor rushed to her side and pushed her hair from her forehead. 'Emily. Emily! Wake up!' Her eyes were rolling under her lids; she had immediately fallen into REM sleep. She was dreaming.

'This is bad, isn't it,' Rose sighed. 'What will this Vishklar thing do to her?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'I don't know. But if she won't wake up, that could mean that the Vishklar has more control of her brain than I thought... It could be getting stronger by the minute.'

Rose stood up straight. 'Then I'll follow her.'

'How do you mean?'

'In my sleep, of course!'

'No, Rose!' the Doctor snapped. 'It's too dangerous. I can't follow you except in the TARDIS, and there's no guarantee—'

'Yeah, there's no guarantee you can even get to this other dimension in the TARDIS! So I have to do it. I'm a vivid dreamer, I've probably gone there loads of times—'

'I was going to say that there's no guarantee I'll be able to find you again,' he interrupted her. 'And there's also no guarantee you'll be able to find Emily on your own. The Seretti dimension is almost impossible to navigate; the Vishklar are constantly changing its structure—'

Rose scowled stubbornly. 'So how would we find Emily any better in the TARDIS? I know that I can do it. I'm good at lucid dreaming. I can probably manipulate dreams as well as a Vishklar.'

'But—' The Doctor bit his thumb. 'If I could only calibrate the TARDIS's dimensional translator to human brainwave patterns, we could find her more quickly...'

'So you admit that it'll be faster if I look for her myself and you catch up.'

'Yes, it'd be faster, but that's not the point—'

'I thought that _was_ the point. You said the Vishklar was getting stronger!'

The Doctor dithered for several more seconds. 'All right. Here's what we'll do. You'll come with me to the TARDIS, and I'll put you to sleep... After a while, you'll start dreaming and your mind will hopefully enter the Seretti dimension on its own. I'll take the TARDIS along with your body and look for you.'

'Whoa, hang on,' Rose said, holding up a hand. 'I won't be in my body?'

'No, of course not. Only your consciousness can travel to the Seretti dimension.' He tapped gently at her temple. 'Your body can go there in only the TARDIS, like me.'

'So when I wake up, my—consciousness will just go back to my body?'

The Doctor nodded. 'That's the idea. If I don't find you and Emily before the end of one normal human REM cycle, I'll wake you up.'

'One cycle?' Rose's brow furrowed. 'How long is that?'

'About twenty minutes.' He waved off her dubious look. 'But time works differently in the Seretti dimension. It'll seem like hours.' He shook his head. 'Your consciousness will return to your body after the end of your REM cycle, anyway. Then we'll have to look for Emily in the TARDIS... It could take days.'

'Normal days or dream-dimension days?'

He looked at her solemnly. 'It will feel like months to you. And it won't be a picnic for me either, even though my time sense will remain unaffected.'

'Whew.' Rose tucked her hair behind her ear. 'And what'll happen if we can't find Emily's consciousness?'

The Doctor looked at the small sleeping woman in the armchair. 'If the Vishklar continues to feed on her energy, it'll keep her in a perpetual dream state...'

'So she'll never wake up?'

He shook his head. 'Nope. And what's worse, this Vishklar could gain a corporeal form. It could manifest in normal spacetime.'

Rose winced. 'What does that mean?'

'Nothing good.'

'Then we've got to go _now_,' she said firmly, grabbing his arm and pulling him out the doorway. They left the sleeping Emily and the cold tea behind.

As they made their way to the front door of the house, they ran into Eleanor. 'So sorry, have to run,' said the Doctor.

'Thanks for the tea,' added Rose, rushing past her to the front entryway. Eleanor stared after them, but they were already out of the house and pelting down Main Street back toward where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS.

_Well_, thought Rose as she sprinted beside the Doctor, _so much for a leisurely walk out of town_.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: The Vishklar and the Seretti dimension are from an episode of _The Sarah Jane Adventures_, S04E01 "The Nightmare Man."**


	2. Part II

_**Part II**_

Back in the TARDIS, Rose was sceptical that she would be able to fall asleep while strapped into a jump seat in the console room. 'Can't I just go to bed?' she asked the Doctor.

He shook his head. 'I need to hook you up to the console while you dream and read your brainwave patterns, so that the TARDIS will know how to get to the Seretti dimension,' he explained as he quickly attached electrodes to her temples. 'I'll help you go to sleep, though.'

'How? With your special Time Lord mind-melding powers?'

'Yeah. Something like that.' He deftly finished hooking up the electrodes. 'You'll need to go straight into REM sleep. I can help you do that, and make the dream state deep enough so that your consciousness should easily make the shift into the Seretti dimension.'

She leaned back in the seat. 'All right. Sounds good.'

'Rose... A Vishklar this powerful...' The Doctor fiddled with a bundle of wires, looking worried. 'It's likely that since we're so close to where Emily is, the Vishklar will be able to manipulate your dreams, too. I won't be able to stop it from giving you nightmares just like Emily's.'

'So, guaranteed bad dreams, then? Bummer,' Rose said unconcernedly.

'They won't just be bad dreams.' The Doctor frowned seriously at her. 'They'll be dreams constructed directly from your worst memories and fears. Nightmares that the Vishklar will design specifically to make you afraid and helpless.'

Rose shrugged. 'I've been afraid and helpless. Never stopped me before.' She snorted. 'Well, okay, maybe it did stop me a few times. But then we always found a way to get out, yeah?'

'Of course,' the Doctor said impatiently. 'I know that, you know that. But when you're dreaming, you can forget things that you know.'

'Stop worrying,' Rose said, patting his arm. 'A nightmare never killed anybody.'

The Doctor sighed. 'True, very true.' He paused, seeming to reconsider, but then nodded shortly. 'All right, then. Try to relax, and we'll send you off to dreamland.' He knelt in front of her and placed his hands on her shoulders. 'So here's what we're going to do. You look for Emily. Concentrate, don't lose focus, and don't let the Vishklar get to you. Remember that it wants you to be afraid.'

Rose set her jaw. 'All right. How will I find Emily?'

'Hmm...' He looked up. 'I think that the way the dimension is constructed, if you call out loud enough, she'll hear you. The distance between dreamscapes isn't far, you see.' He looked back to her, brow wrinkled in concentration. 'It's just hard to communicate between them. You have to keep remembering that you're dreaming—or else you'll be stuck. No communication.'

She nodded. 'Got it.'

'It shouldn't be too difficult as long as you can stay lucid. But Rose...' He looked earnestly at her. 'If you get lost, or forget you're dreaming, or run into a Vishklar... Just remember that I will find you. I will always find you. Please don't forget that.'

Rose smiled as she closed her eyes. 'I won't.'

It was a few more seconds before the Doctor gently touched his fingers to the sides of her face. Rose felt his warm, bright mind flicker into her awareness, like a candle flame in the darkness behind her eyelids.

She began to feel very drowsy and comfortable, completely at peace. It was comforting to know that the Doctor was there—even though she knew she wouldn't be with him in a moment. His last words ran through her mind as she slowly drifted into unconsciousness...

The Doctor felt Rose's mind slip into sleep and let his fingers fall from her head. He blew out a breath and watched a monitor on the console, waiting for the correct dimensional coordinates to feed through.

After a couple of minutes, a light flashed green and the monitor showed a stream of Gallifreyan digits. 'Yes, yes,' the Doctor muttered as he began flipping switches and yanking on levers. 'Time to go. Hang on, Rose.' He glanced at her peacefully sleeping body as the TARDIS began to dematerialise.

When it materialised again, he knew that the coordinates had worked. The monitors showed that outside was only black, blank space—a perfect medium for crafting dreams. He took a last glance at Rose and ran out of the TARDIS, making sure the door was secure behind him.

It was difficult for him to move in this plane. Hard to see, too. Flickers of imaginary sights and sounds rushed all around him, and he didn't know where to turn to go toward Rose or Emily. Directions were almost impossible to determine. Here, wherever he was, was not part of a human dream.

'Emily!' he called loudly into the darkness. If she was lucid enough, she would be able to hear him; otherwise, he would have to search for her without any guidance. He hoped that he could find Rose first, since she'd be able to get them around faster as long as he could keep her remembering that she was in a dream.

The Seretti Dimension was one of his least favourite higher planes. Why human minds would want to visit it in their dreams, he would never be able to guess. 'It's so dark here. And boring,' he murmured to himself. 'Where could you be, Emily?'

He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and sent out an exploratory signal. The same landscape of nothingness seemed to extend everywhere, until a faint low-amplitude wave bounced back from one direction. 'Beautiful,' he said, grinning. He pushed ahead, calling for Emily and for Rose. He'd find them eventually if they were aware enough to hear him and respond.

After he had been walking for about fifteen minutes—or forty-five seconds, in real spacetime—he thought he could hear the edge of someone's dream. But was it the right dream?

'Emily,' he shouted. 'Are you there?' Gunshots were sounding in the distance—Emily had to be dreaming about the war. The Doctor grimaced. He knew from experience that war was anyone's worst nightmare.

He called again in the direction he thought the dream was. 'Emily, if you can hear me, just concentrate. Don't give up! It's just a nightmare!' Even if she couldn't hear his words explicitly, the meaning might trickle through subconsciously—enough to get her to realise that whatever she was seeing wasn't real.

'Human minds are so tricky,' the Doctor muttered as he trudged forward to find Emily's dream. He hoped he would get there in time.

* * *

><p>Rose was aware of standing in a black, empty space. Looking around and finding that every direction was the same, she shouted into the void. 'Doctor! Where are you?' She didn't feel like she was actually making any sound. Her thoughts were fuzzy, difficult to hold onto. <em>Dreaming. I'm dreaming,<em> she remembered suddenly. _Where's Emily?_

'Miss Dickinson!' she called out. 'Emily! Can you hear me? Tell me where you are!'

She concentrated hard and thought she could almost hear Emily's voice. But instead of the measured, cheerful tone that Rose had heard her use before, the faint, echoey voice had a tone of panic. _No... No!_ was all she could hear.

Rose started walking toward where she thought Emily's voice was coming from, but felt as though she were weighed down and held back by some invisible force. Her frustration built the longer she struggled against it. _Damn it. Why is it always so hard in a dream to go where you want?_

At the very corner of her eye, she discerned a faint humanoid figure standing in the darkness. Turning toward it, she tried to see what it was, but it evaded her gaze. She shook her head slowly and continued onward, pulling laboriously through space as though bracing herself against a strong current, barely able to move...

It was no longer utterly dark. Fiery orange light ghosted over the walls, reflecting off the steam and dust that filled the air. Rose turned on the spot and saw the horrible writhing thing in the vat below. She felt vaguely queasy as cold fear crept over her.

Then she heard an indistinct but familiar voice beside her. _The Nestene Consciousness,_ it said.

She didn't look right at him, but she knew it was the Doctor. The one she thought of as her Doctor, with the personality and body he'd had when they'd first met. She knew where they were—in the cavern underneath the London Eye. _I have to speak to it, Rose. I haven't come to kill it..._ the Doctor continued.

Rose thought that she nodded, but her head didn't move. She looked down the metal staircase, somehow knowing that Mickey would be there. His body was slumped against the railing. _This isn't right,_ Rose thought, or said, or felt. _Why isn't this right?_

Rushing down the staircase as fast as she could, but somehow at a maddeningly slow pace, she tried to get to Mickey. _Got to help him. The Nestene took him, they copied him, the Doctor pulled his head off and it melted..._ The jumbled memories coalesced into something that seemed to make sense. But something was wrong about Mickey. He was silent, unmoving. His eyes were closed, not looking fearfully at her as he had done all those months ago. He was dead.

_They killed him._ Rose felt choked with tears that didn't come. _They weren't supposed to kill him..._

_I couldn't save him, Rose,_ the Doctor said shortly, appearing suddenly behind her. _Nothing I could do. I don't care about some kid, anyway. Stupid apes, the lot of you..._

_Mickey,_ Rose helplessly whispered. _Mickey._ The grisly orange light all around her was like hellfire, but she felt cold. The Doctor looked more alien than he had ever seemed before. But it was all wrong. She knew he wasn't like that, she knew that he cared—

A shift of the light, a warping of Rose's sense of time... The Doctor was no longer behind her. He was bellowing at the Nestene Consciousness, who growled and burbled in response. _It's an invasion!_ the Doctor yelled. _Don't you talk to me about constitutional rights!..._

Rose saw him get grabbed by the two blank-faced mannequins, but her shout of warning was voiceless and her intended lunge toward him somehow left her standing in place. She helplessly watched the Doctor struggle with his captors, watched as the Nestene brought the TARDIS into view above them. The plastic monster howled with rage at the Doctor, and the sound echoed in Rose's ears.

_I was there—I fought in the war... I couldn't save your planet. I couldn't save any of them!_ The Doctor's normally kindly, smiling face, the face she loved so well, was broken and wretched-looking now. _Run, Rose. Save yourself. Run!_

_It didn't happen like this,_ Rose tried to say. _I'm supposed to save you!_ The words stuck inside her throat. _I just have to swing to him,_ she told herself. _Find the cable, reach for it!_ Her legs were still motionless; she could not force her arms to move.

The two mannequins were edging the Doctor ever closer to the pit where the Nestene Consciousness roared and roiled in its vat. She saw them fling him in, saw the seething mass of living plastic swallow him whole. Now she could finally scream...

Rose's vision went black. Then it blossomed with light, painfully bright, hot and searing. _Sun shield descending,_ the calm female voice blared. The wall above her head sizzled and cracked.

_Let me out. Let me out!_ Rose shouted, pounding at the door. There was no one on the other side. Her Doctor wasn't there... She sank to the floor and curled into a ball, tensed with sick anticipation. _I'll burn, I'll burn to death..._

Right before the blazing, unimpeded light from the red giant sun began to scorch her body, she was suddenly in the Cardiff undertaker's basement, seeing Gwyneth standing at the rift with glowing eyes. The Gelth were pouring through and Gwyneth couldn't stop them, Gwyneth was dead...

The Slitheen were coming. Rose could hear them, hiding in the curtain with Harriet Jones and knowing that they could smell her. They were going to eat her, rip her apart with their horrible long limbs...

The Dalek's eye looked straight at her. _I AM DALEK! DALEKS DO NOT SHOW MERCY!_ it said in a mechanical shriek. The blue eye on its metal stalk was cold and unfeeling, and Rose knew it had the intent to kill this time...

She was dimly aware that none of what she was experiencing was real. _I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming,_ she kept on telling herself, as each of her and the Doctor's exploits went horribly wrong, over and over.

_Only a nightmare,_ she thought as she saw Suki's dead body plugged into the computer mainframe in the dim room full of icicles and snow. _Only a nightmare_, as she saw the Jagrafess roar and scream above them and snatch the Doctor away from her, throwing him into its hideous mouth.

But the worst was when Rose's father died in her arms again. It was the worst because this time, it wasn't just a nightmare. His glassy eyes staring at her, his laboured last breaths, the ravaging creatures in the sky above dissolving as the paradox was repaired—it was all real.

Tears streamed down her face. The Doctor was nowhere in sight, but still at the very edge of her vision was that eerie human-shaped figure, clothed in some kind of ethereal lace, watching her silently. She could not quite gaze in its direction. Its presence seemed like part of the world of the dream, which somehow became more fixed and real every second. _There's something I'm supposed to do... What am I supposed to do?_

The nightmare shifted again, and Rose's lucidity was gone.

* * *

><p>The Doctor's way was slow going, but he gritted his teeth and continued onward. If he could just get to where Emily was, he could help her... He wondered how Rose was getting on.<p>

He encountered a solid black wall. Holding up the sonic screwdriver, he illuminated it in dim blue and tried to ascertain its size. It seemed to stretch on forever—it must be enclosing a dreamscape. Rose's? Emily's? Or someone else's?

A faint sound echoed behind him, making him jump. _Time Lord..._ a voice whispered. Whipping around, he fixed his gaze on a small humanlike shape, a faceless apparition in tattered white lace. It must be very powerful indeed by now if it could assume a definite form.

'What do you want?' he asked the Vishklar, crossing his arms and appraising its ghostlike figure.

The Vishklar seemed to have no mouth; its whisper came from whatever direction it chose. It was trying to confuse him. _You will not find your friends here. They are dreaming._

'Where are they?'

_Why would I tell you? I am having such fun with them..._

'I can help you,' the Doctor said to the Vishklar. 'I can give you enough energy to sustain you, if you're hungry. Just let my friends go.'

It seemed to laugh. The sound was soft and yet shrill. _Their fear is so delicious... Nothing you could give me would match that, Time Lord._ The Vishklar made a faint breeze flutter the ends of its lacy garment, but the breeze did not reach the Doctor. In the Seretti dimension, wind was imaginary.

'I'm giving you one last chance to leave them alone.' The Doctor's mouth was a grim line; his eyes blazed.

_And then what will you do?_ the Vishklar hissed.

The Doctor bared his teeth. 'Look into my mind.'

The Vishklar seemed momentarily surprised. Then it began to pry against the Doctor's mental defences, which he threw wide open, letting images and sounds stream out.

_Gallifrey was burning. The fields and the cities, all the places and people he loved...  
>His rage was all that remained. Towering above his planet, above his enemies...<br>Everything was ripping apart. The last of the Daleks screeched in fury as it was consumed by the inferno...  
>Fiery wind whipped at his singed hair, his velvet coat. He turned his tear-stained face to the orange sky...<br>_Let me die!_ he screamed. _Let me die!_ But there was no one left...  
>None but the Oncoming Storm, who collapsed back into his TARDIS, wracked with sobs. He was all alone, and nothing could bring them back—nothing—nothing—<em>

The Vishklar reeled from the Doctor's mind.

'That is my worst memory,' the Doctor said calmly. 'And I'm not afraid of it. You have no power over me.' He narrowed his eyes at the being. 'I'm older than you, and cleverer. And I will stop you.'

_How will you do that, Time Lord?_ the Vishklar whispered. _I and my kind hold dominion here. Your race may have been arrogant enough to destroy peoples and planets of the lower world, but you cannot destroy Seretti. You cannot destroy the Vishklar._

'I don't plan to,' the Doctor said. 'But I will make sure you never trespass in a human mind again.'

_You say you do not fear your memories,_ the Vishklar went on, ignoring the threat. _And yet I taste your sorrow and your pain. You are the last of your kind... and your time is running short. Your thirteenth death will be your last..._

The Doctor shook his head. 'I'm not afraid of death. Never have been.' He sneered. 'You don't have much experience in dealing with my kind, eh? Fear of death is a human phenomenon. Time Lords don't bother with it. But I suppose it doesn't matter, since it's not like you're going to meet another one besides me.'

The Vishklar cocked what would have been its head to one side. _You still have not said what you will do if I do not release the humans from my thrall._

'This is what I'll do,' the Doctor growled. 'If you don't let them go, I'll find them myself—and I'll help them. Give them hope. You can't feed on their fear if they aren't afraid.' He raised his voice to almost a shout. 'I'll cut them away from you forever. I'll leave you starving in the dark!' The words he spoke echoed around him, but the Vishklar had disappeared from sight.

The malevolent presence was lurking somewhere nearby, though; the Doctor could feel it. He stared around him, eyes trying to pierce the darkness, but there was nothing to see. He took a few cautious steps along the wall.

It took him utterly by surprise when the black landscape around him started to change. It shifted and warped into more walls, grim and imposing, growing exponentially taller every second. Before he knew it, he was standing in the middle of a vast maze. He turned around but couldn't see the TARDIS. For all he knew, it lay miles behind him in the labyrinth.

'No!' The Doctor angrily pounded his fist against the wall in front of him. Time Lords could walk and talk here, but that was about it. Only Vishklar and the most resilient of human minds could manipulate the environment of the Seretti dimension. These walls were here to stay.

Beyond the wall he couldn't hear anything. The defences were thick around this dream. It must be Emily's or Rose's, if the Vishklar had gone to such lengths to prevent the Doctor from getting in.

There was nothing for it but to continue to the left or right, to try to find a way around the wall. He bit his lip in agitation. If Rose or Emily couldn't hear him, he could be stuck here forever. That was not a pleasant prospect, especially since Rose's body was still sleeping in the TARDIS. If the Vishklar didn't let her go, if he couldn't find her, she might never wake up... Her body would remain trapped in the TARDIS. No one would be able to find them and he wouldn't be able to reach her, not before she starved or perished from thirst.

He couldn't help but think of the last lines of the poem he'd recited to Rose as they walked to Emily Dickinson's house, the lines he hadn't told to her. The thought of them made him feel decidedly ill as he fruitlessly searched for a way around the wall, the words echoing in his head.

_Only a Bird will wonder—  
>Only a Breeze will sigh—<br>Ah Little Rose—how easy  
>For such as thee to die!<em>

* * *

><p>Rose had no idea how much time had passed. She was standing in the console room of the TARDIS with the Doctor, her current Doctor, with the long brown coat and red chucks and wild hair. He was alive, awoken from his long sleep and healthy in his new body. But everything looked slightly awry. The light of the time rotor was sickly green; the walls glowed a dim red. The Doctor's face was stone.<p>

_Rose,_ he said coolly, _I don't want you here any more._

The shock at his words sank slowly into her, like poison through her bloodstream. She couldn't breathe.

She could take almost anything. She could handle the scary monsters, the daring plans, all the dangerous adventures they'd had together that could have—that had—ended in death. She could even bear the Doctor sending her away to keep her safe, because she would always, always find a way to return to him. But she couldn't take this.

_I've brought you home,_ he continued, gesturing to the door. _Now get out._

_No..._ was all she could say in reply at first. _No! You can't!_

_You have to leave,_ the Doctor said dispassionately. _There isn't a place for you here._

_Why?_ she demanded, angrily blinking away tears.

_You're just a stupid, silly human girl._ His cold, impassive face began to contort into a sneer. _I was a fool to take you on before... and that fool is dead. New body, new personality, new rules._ He crossed his arms with finality. _I travel alone now._

_You can't just throw me out!_ Rose was yelling at him furiously, uselessly. _I've helped you. I've trusted you. You'd be dead if I hadn't!_

_The one you helped was another man, Rose Tyler. You mean nothing to me._

She continued to shout at him, railing, pleading, but he only stared at her silently. Then he turned away from her and didn't look back.

Swallowing a sob but keeping her back straight, Rose slowly pushed open the door of TARDIS and went out. She stumbled onto the familiar London alleyway outside as the grinding sound of takeoff began behind her. The wind swirled, the police box's light glowed, and the TARDIS began to fade into the Vortex, taking the Doctor away from her forever. She could only stare blankly at the patch of pavement where it had stood.

She would not cry. She would not wait here, hoping stupidly that he would come back. She would go home, and she would forget him.

_Forget me, Rose Tyler,_ he had said to her once, when she had first met him. She let out a choked laugh. It was impossible.

_Mum and Mickey knew all along,_ she thought. _Would they take me back? Are they even here?_

She somehow knew that they were both gone. They had abandoned her, as she had abandoned them—as the Doctor had abandoned them. She had nowhere to go now.

A figure in ragged white lace stood watching her, but she could not see it. Her mind buzzed with confusion. Everything was fading to blackness around her. And then she had a sudden thought that broke through the muddled dream state, through her grief and desolation.

_There's something I have to remember. Something important. What is it?_

The wraithlike being lifted a skeletal arm, sending an overwhelming series of images toward her. The Doctor laughing derisively, the Doctor taunting her for her misplaced loyalty... Her mother and Mickey turning away from her in disgust, having had their hearts broken too many times... Earth under attack, falling, defeated, with no blue box appearing on the street corner to come to the rescue...

Rose blinked and shook her head. _This isn't right._

A faint growl of frustration from the Vishklar... She remembered the word Vishklar.

_The architects of dreams. Bad dreams. This is a bad dream._ She opened her eyes wide and stared as hard as she could into the blackness around her. _That wasn't really the Doctor, it wasn't him... He'd never do that._ She spoke aloud for the first time since the nightmares had begun. 'The Doctor said he'd always find me. He told me! I remember!'

Suddenly Rose was able to see the Vishklar directly in front of her, small and white and ghostly. She stared it down. 'I'm not afraid of you. You can't make me forget!' It hissed in anger as it began to lose solidity. Its form flickered and wavered slightly before it slunk back into the shadows. The dreamscape around her was blank and empty once again.

'Rose!' a muffled voice called. 'Rose! Can you hear me?'

It seemed to be coming from behind her, but she couldn't make it out very well. A rushing sound filled her ears. The Vishklar was still somewhere nearby, she knew, but that wasn't where the voice was coming from.

'Doctor! I'm here!'

'Rose?' The voice was clearer now. 'Rose, listen to me. You have to imagine a door!'

'What? A door?' It was still hard to hear him, but Rose knew it was the Doctor. The true Doctor. She felt a warm rush of relief at the knowledge that he really had found her.

'Think of a door. A door in a wall.' Rose nodded and concentrated. She jumped in surprise as an actual wall materialised before her, wobbly but still solid. She thought harder at it, and it seemed to grow stronger. The faint outline of a door began to appear.

'That's it, Rose. Beautiful. Keep going!'

She thought of the door of her mum's flat, busted cat flap and all. In a flash of clarity, she saw it fully formed in front of her. As she maintained the image in her mind, it opened abruptly and the Doctor tumbled through.

'Rose!' he shouted happily, even as he tripped over his own feet. 'Found you!'

She laughed and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly as she helped him up. She was glad to find that his form was solid and real. 'Did you manage to find Emily?' she asked him. The Doctor shook his head.

'I had a bit of a holdup. What about you?'

Rose sighed. 'Me, too. I'm glad you're here now.'

The Doctor glanced sidelong at her. 'I... er... I lost the TARDIS.'

'What do you mean, lost the TARDIS? My body's still in there!'

He winced. 'I know. But I ran into the Vishklar and it made this sort of—maze thing... back there, through the door you made. The walls go on for miles.' His expression brightened. 'I bet you could get us through the maze like you got me through this wall, though, as long as we don't meet the—'

'Vishklar,' Rose finished on a sigh, pointing behind him. The Doctor slowly turned around.

_You thought you could weaken me._ The apparition, back in its solid lace-clothed form, sounded almost smug. _But I grow strong on other fears..._

'Emily!' the Doctor said urgently to Rose. 'I heard gunshots before. I think she's dreaming about the war.'

'We have to find her before that thing gets even stronger.' Rose lifted her voice. 'Emily! Miss Dickinson! Don't be afraid, we're coming to help you!'

_She cannot hear you,_ the Vishklar said with a gleeful tone. _Observe..._ It waved an arm and they saw a vague impression of Emily floating in the darkness. She looked terrified. Blood stained her long white dress, her face, her hands. Tears were running down her cheeks as she looked frantically around her. The Doctor and Rose had no idea what she might be seeing in her nightmare.

_No—they mustn't die—!_ she seemed to be mouthing, but they heard no sound emerge from her throat. _Help me, help me..._

_Her fear is such wonderful sustenance,_ the Vishklar sighed. The sound sent a shiver down Rose's spine. _Enough for me to leave this place at last._

To Rose's horror, walls began to rise around them both. Not just black, featureless walls—these were walls of stone, smeared with blood and filth. The walls of a dungeon.

'Don't let it scare you, Rose,' the Doctor said, but he sounded nervous. 'Remember, these walls aren't real—'

_I think you will find that you are mistaken, Time Lord,_ the hissing voice laughed. _They are as real as I am now. Farewell, Time Lord... you and your human cannot escape._

Soon they were completely enclosed by the stone walls. Rose pushed against one but immediately pulled away her hand in disgust, shaking off slime.

'What do we do, Doctor?' she asked, but the Doctor could only shake his head helplessly. They were stuck in the prison.

'How did it do that?' the Doctor asked, dazed. 'How—oh no, oh no...'

'What is it?' Rose's heart sank.

'Rose, you're definitely dreaming lucidly now that I'm here with you, right?'

'Yeah,' she agreed, 'unless you're a dream.' She smiled at him faintly, but he didn't smile back.

'Well, if that Vishklar can prevent you from manipulating your own dream while you know that you're dreaming... it's strong. Very strong.'

Rose frowned. 'I thought we knew that already? It's got a solid form and everything. That's bad.' She jumped as something squeaked and scurried at the edge of the wall—the Vishklar had apparently included rats in its dungeon.

'It's worse.' The Doctor placed his hand on the grimy wall. 'I know where it's gone. Now that it's accumulated this much energy from feeding off Emily's fear, it'll be able to manifest in normal spacetime...'

'You never really explained what that means,' Rose pointed out, beginning to pace around the cell. She avoided the grinning skeleton sitting in the corner.

'It can walk about in our world now. It can find any sleeping humans and make them have continual nightmares, and then get more fear to feed off of—'

Rose swallowed. 'And get stronger?'

'Stronger and stronger,' the Doctor said, nodding. 'Soon it'll be able to put humans to sleep on its own. It can put the whole world to sleep, make billions of people have nightmares all at the same time...'

'Isn't there any way to stop it?'

The Doctor shook his head gravely. 'Not unless we can find Emily and get her to stop being afraid.'

'Doctor...' Rose looked at him, suddenly very worried. 'Didn't you say you were going to wake me up after I'd been dreaming for a while?'

'Yes, after one REM cycle.'

Rose pointed at the wall beside her. 'But my body's stuck in the TARDIS, somewhere out there...'

The Doctor's face screwed up in frustration. 'And now you can't wake up because the Vishklar's trapped us in here.' He kicked the wall of the prison angrily. 'But you have to wake up! If you don't, you'll—'

'I'll what?' Rose's voice shook.

'The TARDIS will be able to sustain you in suspension for a while, but eventually you'll need food and water, and if you can't wake up—'

'I'll die before we get out of here,' she concluded dully.

'No no no, don't say that. Rose, I promise—' The Doctor fixed her with his gaze, inhaling deeply through his nose. 'I swear by my soles that you will come out of this alive.'

'Your souls? What, have Time Lords got two souls as well as two hearts, then?'

'Of course I do! I've got two feet, haven't I?' Rose looked puzzled; the Doctor seemed a bit put out that she didn't get it immediately. 'I don't mean my barefoot soles, I mean my rubber soles,' he clarified, bouncing slightly on his toes.

Rose laughed despite herself. 'You're swearing on your trainers?'

He nodded emphatically. 'But not the entire shoes, really—just the soles. I always swear by 'em. They're very handy as insulation if you happen to get struck by lightning, or attacked with a stun gun or—'

'I believe you,' she cut him off, still sniggering. Her expression became grimmer as she looked around again at the bloodstained stone walls that the Vishklar had constructed. 'So. We need to think of a way to break out of here. I'm not going to die because some stupid ghost in a tatty dressing gown locks me in a dungeon.'

'This is a pretty authentic dungeon,' the Doctor said appraisingly. He walked about, tapping each of the walls. 'The moss, the blood, the rats, the skeleton... This Vishklar could be a set builder for the cinema.'

'Fat lot of good a skeleton does us,' said Rose, looking at it and shuddering.

'Hang on...' The Doctor knelt beside the skeleton and peered at what it was sitting on. 'There's a trapdoor here.'

Rose crouched down next to him. 'Why would the Vishklar include a way out of the dungeon it built?'

The Doctor fished his glasses out of his pocket. 'Well, firstly, I don't know if we can actually get out this way. And secondly, I wouldn't put it past that Vishklar to put a trapdoor in its dungeon only so it could leave us a bunch of nasty things to fight through on our way out.'

Rose knocked on the wood of the trapdoor, but it seemed pretty sturdy. It was secured with a heavy padlock. 'Can you sonic it open?'

'I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try,' the Doctor said with a shrug. He took out the sonic screwdriver, poked it at the giant padlock, and turned it on. Rose apprehensively watched the blue light flicker on and off as the Doctor tried to find the correct frequency. The sonic screwdriver buzzed at a higher and higher pitch until Rose's teeth started to grate at the noise, then suddenly there was a click and the padlock snapped open.

'Brilliant!' The Doctor removed the padlock and heaved up on the trapdoor. Underneath it was a ladder leading down to a black pit. There was no way of telling how far it extended downward; the light of the sonic screwdriver illuminated only a few rungs of the ladder before it faded into darkness.

'Well,' Rose sighed, 'looks like we won't come up with any better plans than going down there.' She tilted her head toward the open trapdoor. 'So... how 'bout you make good on your promise and start getting us out of here, yeah?'

'Yeah.' The Doctor smiled reassuringly, taking her hand and giving it a soft squeeze. 'Will do.'

He tucked the sonic screwdriver back into his pocket and crouched down near the opening in the floor, then nodded once at Rose, as though to tell her everything would be all right. He lowered himself into the hole and was immediately engulfed by the thick shadows.

Rose took a deep breath before following him down. She carefully manoeuvred herself onto the rickety ladder, trying not to think about what horrors the Vishklar might have left waiting for them below. The Doctor's echoing shout of _'Allons-y!,'_ though somewhat heartening, was only a small comfort to her as she descended into the all-encompassing blackness.


	3. Part III

_**Part III**_

The tunnel was pitch-black and echoed with the sound of dripping water. The walls weren't wet, though; the dripping had to be a sound effect added by the Vishklar to create a spooky ambience. The Doctor couldn't see or hear Rose; he started to get worried until he saw her a few metres behind him by the light of the sonic screwdriver.

'Rose! Stay close,' he warned. 'No telling what evil beasties may be down here waiting to attack us.' Rose nodded. She stayed a couple of paces behind the Doctor as they continued down the tunnel.

It was hard enough to see where they were going without added obstacles. The Doctor kept on tripping over irregularities in the floor, obviously put there by the Vishklar to make their passage more difficult. The way was long and winding, but at least it was only a single passageway. The Doctor knew he wouldn't have been able to find his way through a complex warren of tunnels, any more than he could have found the TARDIS in the maze the Vishklar had created.

They made their way carefully through the darkness, not speaking a word to each other. The Doctor vaguely wondered why they hadn't encountered anything yet besides potholes in the floor.

'What are we going to do?' Rose asked after they had been walking in silence for a while.

'What do you mean?' asked the Doctor, narrowly avoiding losing his footing when he stumbled over a protrusion of rock.

'When we get out of this tunnel. What are we going to do?'

'Well—' The Doctor sucked in a breath and admitted, 'I really don't know.' He twirled the sonic screwdriver between his fingers. 'I don't know how we're going to find Emily, I don't know how we can get away from the Vishklar—'

'The old Doctor would have known what to do.'

'What?' The Doctor turned to Rose in surprise. 'But... I'm him, and he's me. How could he—I mean, I—have done any better than I'm doing now?'

Rose's expression was cold. 'I told you before that I wanted you to change back.'

'And I told you before that I can't,' the Doctor replied coolly.

'He was so much better than you,' Rose muttered, narrowing her eyes. 'Smart, and funny, and brave... He always protected me.'

'Protected you? What do you think I'm trying to do now?'

'You're leading me into danger!'

'You were the one who volunteered to go to the Seretti dimension—by yourself, I might add!'

'You care more about Emily Dickinson than you care about me,' Rose retorted. 'You're swanning off to save her with no thought about the risk involved!'

'That's not true!' the Doctor insisted angrily. 'I'm not—'

'Before you changed, you were a better person,' Rose cut him off. '_My_ Doctor knew how to treat people kindly. _My_ Doctor always knew what to do in a crisis. _My_ Doctor loved me.' She drew herself up to her full height. '_My_ Doctor died to save me, and he left me with _you_—' she spat out the last word—'a stupid old madman who thinks danger is just a game!'

'It's _me_, Rose!' The Doctor was shocked at how her words could sting his centuries-old hearts, how much she was hurting him. 'I never left you, I'm still here—and you're still my friend!'

'You aren't what I want,' Rose snapped. 'I loved my Doctor, and now he's gone. You couldn't hope to compare with him.'

The Doctor could only stutter helplessly. 'But—I'm—'

'I want to go home,' Rose yelled at him. 'Back to my mum and Ricky! They were right about you! You only cause trouble wherever you go!'

'Wait—' The Doctor's face went slack with confusion. 'Ricky?'

'Yes, Ricky, who's loads better than you even though he's a coward and doesn't have a flying blue box—'

'His name is Mickey,' the Doctor said quietly.

'No, his name's Ricky, that's what you're always saying—'

The Doctor interrupted her. 'Where's a Sontaran's weak point?'

'Back of the neck,' Rose said without hesitation.

'What was my name at the Academy on Gallifrey?'

Rose cocked her head to one side. 'Theta Sigma.'

'What's the name of my granddaughter?'

'Susan Foreman.'

The Doctor stared Rose in the eye. 'I never told Rose any of those things,' he said slowly. 'And I know Ricky's name from the alternate universe, but Rose doesn't know about that—she always calls him Mickey. You aren't Rose.'

The figure that looked like Rose began to laugh. 'And you didn't even notice until now! How easy it is to pluck your insecurities and shortcomings from your mind...' Her grin widened; her eyes flashed. 'The real Rose is gone.'

'I don't believe you,' the Doctor said shortly.

'Well, where is she, then?' she—it—cackled. 'You've lost her! Failed her when she was depending on you to keep her safe!'

The Doctor sprinted back toward the entrance of the tunnel, aiming the sonic screwdriver around. 'Rose? Rose!'

He almost tripped over the body that was slumped against the tunnel wall. The Doctor felt his blood turn to ice. 'No...'

Rose's eyes were open, staring with terror into the distance, but they saw nothing. She wasn't breathing. The other Rose continued laughing.

The Doctor gritted his teeth. 'That isn't the real Rose either!' he shouted. 'I know she's here somewhere—where are you keeping her?'

'_Doctor!_' a voice called faintly in the distance. The Doctor continued at a stumbling run, trying to determine where the sound was coming from. He left the two fake Roses behind.

He eventually came upon a vast black pit that hadn't been there before. He only barely managed to avoid falling into it because of a lucky glance at the tunnel floor, which dropped off abruptly to an unfathomable distance below. 'Rose!'

'I'm over here, Doctor!' The voice didn't come from down in the pit; it came from across. The Doctor lifted the sonic screwdriver to try to cast as much light as possible to the other side of the rift, but he still couldn't see anything.

There didn't seem to be any way to cross the deep chasm. The Doctor thought hard, drumming his fingers against his chin. He couldn't manipulate the dream space, so he couldn't make a bridge... Rose would be able to do it if she concentrated hard enough, but she seemed to be panicking and unable to focus on reworking her surroundings.

He twirled the sonic screwdriver again in agitation, trying to think of a solution—and dropped it. He lunged for it, trying desperately to catch it before it fell into the abyss, but it fell too quickly for him. He was shocked when it clattered to the ground, even though there was no ground beneath it.

'Oh! Of course, it's an illusion!' He carefully poked his foot out over the cliff edge and found that the ground, though invisible, was perfectly solid. He grabbed the sonic screwdriver and ran across.

Rose was very pale and shivering. 'Doctor! Why were you gone for so long? What happened?'

He shook his head. 'The Vishklar tricked me. It made a copy of you—I thought you were with me—' He took her hands. 'I'm sorry.'

'I was so scared... I thought you'd left me.'

'Never.' He shook his head fervently. 'You know I'd never. Now come on, let's get out of here.'

'But how—?'

'It isn't really a pit,' the Doctor explained. He tapped his shoe against the invisible tunnel floor, seemingly over empty space. 'See? Solid ground.'

Rose nodded, though she looked uneasy. She held the Doctor's hand tightly as they ran across the ravine, not daring to look down. When they made it to the other side, the Doctor suddenly turned to her.

'How do I know you're really Rose?'

She frowned. 'Because I'll kick your arse if you're implying I'm some sort of hallucination!'

'That's my Rose.' He grinned. 'Onward and upward! I think we've gotten through the worst of it—as long as we're together, nothing else can trick us.'

Rose nodded. 'We can't get separated again like that.'

Still holding hands, they walked along the tunnel for several more minutes (thirty-eight seconds, the Doctor counted in normal spacetime) before reaching a wide portal leading to a stone staircase. Grey light faintly filtered through.

'It's got to be a passageway leading to the surface,' Rose said, hopping up onto the stairs.

'The Vishklar's been expecting us,' said the Doctor grimly as he climbed up behind her.

They emerged into glaring sunlight. Shielding her eyes, Rose saw that they were in a wide meadow that was pockmarked with trenches, littered with corpses and piles of earth. It was a battlefield.

'We must be in Emily's dream,' she shouted to the Doctor over the noise of exploding shells and gunfire. The Doctor nodded, trying to see where Emily was.

'There she is,' he said suddenly, pointing some distance to their left. She stood motionless, looking blankly horrified, but seeming somehow unafraid of the gunshots bursting around her.

Rose was curious. 'Doctor, can you get hurt or killed in a dream?'

'Well...' The Doctor considered for a moment, furrowing his brow. 'Theoretically, it would be impossible for you to come to any real harm while inside your own dream. That's why Emily can just stand there in the middle of a battlefield and not get hurt. But since we're in someone else's dream... there's a possibility that we could die.'

'Oh, great,' Rose said faintly. 'Let's try our best not to do that, then.'

'Emily!' the Doctor called. 'Over here!' She didn't turn toward them; she must not have been able to hear them over the blasts of gunfire. She just walked slowly across the meadow, staring around at the scattered shrapnel and bodies.

The Doctor and Rose followed behind her at a zigzagging run. They had to get out of the line of fire. 'Let's go behind there,' Rose panted, pointing to a row of trenches nearby. Far across the meadow they could see another series of ditches, where the volleys of gunshots must have been coming from.

When they reached the relative safety of the edge of the battlefield, they looked around for Emily again. They saw her kneeling at the side of a dead soldier in a blue uniform, tears streaking the dirt on her face.

'Do you think that's someone she knows?' Rose asked as they carefully approached her.

'No idea,' the Doctor said with a shake of his head, but Rose's question was answered soon enough when they got close enough to hear what Emily was saying.

'Oh, Mr Sam,' she sobbed, gripping the dead man's hand and kissing it gently. Rose and the Doctor stared at the man who must have been Samuel Bowles, Emily's dear friend. He had a thick beard and sandy hair; his blue uniform was covered in earth and blood.

After gently closing Samuel's eyelids and taking a shaky breath, Emily stood up and began walking toward a large hill directly beyond the battlefield. They followed her over the crest of the hill and ran down into a valley scattered with several large white tents. Rose squinted at them. 'What is this place?'

The Doctor pointed to a queue of wounded soldiers leading into one of the tents. 'Maybe it's some sort of field hospital. Let's have a look.'

Rose nodded. She stayed very close to the Doctor as they tailed Emily to the entrance of the tent. The soldiers standing outside wore tattered, bloodstained uniforms; they seemed to have no facial features except for eerily blank eyes. They stared at Rose and the Doctor but didn't say a word.

'They aren't real people. They're projections of Emily's imagination,' the Doctor said in a loud whisper.

Rose muttered back, 'How can her imagination extend this far? It looks like it goes on for miles!'

The Doctor shrugged. 'The Vishklar must have constructed most of this dream. That's why the dream space is so big. But it took all the images from Emily's mind.' He smiled wryly. 'And anyway, Emily said it herself in one of her poems: _The brain is wider than the sky._'

They carefully pushed back the flap of the tent and followed Emily inside. Silent nurses dressed in black briskly made their rounds between long aisles of cots. On top of every cot was a gravely injured soldier. Several had bandages wrapped around their heads; a few were missing arms or legs. The only sounds were hacking coughs, pained groans, and the loud buzzing of hundreds of flies. Rose swallowed hard and walked close behind the Doctor, watching Emily make her way down a row.

Suddenly, Emily let out a cry and ran to a soldier's bedside. When Rose and the Doctor caught up with her, they saw that the man on the cot was close to death. His eyes were glazed over and his breath came in wheezes; his uniform was dark with blood around a bullet hole in his chest. Emily was tenderly stroking his grey hair and weeping.

'Emily!' Rose shouted, almost in her ear. 'Please, Emily, look at me. You're dreaming!'

Emily didn't react to the statement except to raise her face, red and blotchy with tears, and cry out to the nearby nurses. 'Don't just stand there. Help them! Can't you see they're all dying?'

'The Doctor is here,' Rose said soothingly. 'He can help!'

'A doctor!' Emily responded, hearing the words but not noticing who had spoken them. 'No, not a doctor, all they do is maim and kill the wounded—they'll kill them all! They cut off his leg!' she sobbed, pointing to the next cot over and covering her face with her hands. A dark-haired man lay there, breathing shallowly, eyes screwed shut.

Rose looked closely at the man and saw that his features looked somewhat familiar. 'Oh my god... is that her brother?' His lips were bleeding; it looked as though he had bitten them to keep himself from screaming.

'Austin!' Emily cried. 'I thought you wouldn't fight, I thought you would be safe...' Austin let out a whimper and tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. Rose's stomach churned as she looked away from him.

The Doctor approached Emily and placed his hand gently on her shoulder, looking at the dying man on the cot. 'Who is this?' he asked.

Emily brought her awareness back in front of her and saw that the old man on the cot had breathed his last. She nearly collapsed in tears. 'Father!' she screamed. 'Father, no! You can't be dead!'

'It's your fault.'

Rose looked up, startled. One of the nearby nurses was glaring at Emily. 'You could have prevented it. Why didn't you get here faster?'

'No, mother, please...' Emily moaned.

The Doctor stood up and glanced between Emily and her mother, eyes shining with unshed tears. 'Emily, no,' he said softly. 'It's not your fault. None of this is real.'

Emily only continued to weep, rocking back and forth. Mrs. Dickinson spoke to her icily. 'You good-for-nothing girl. You are a disappointment, you and your so-called poetry. A failure!'

'Oh—that's it!' The Doctor brightened up suddenly and clapped his hands together. 'Poetry! The sound of her own poems might break through—it could get her to listen to us!'

'Quick, recite one, then!'

The Doctor began to chant in a strong, steady voice. '_I came to buy a smile—today— / But just a single smile— / The smallest one upon your face— / Will suit me just as well—_' Emily stirred slightly, but she didn't quite hear him.

Rose began to recite a half-remembered verse she had read in one of her schoolbooks. '_These are the days when birds come back—_' Emily's eyes were still bright with tears as she looked up. '_A very few—a Bird or two— / To take a backward look..._'

'_I shall keep singing!_' the Doctor said in earnest. '_Birds will pass me / On their way to Yellower Climes—_' Emily was shaking her head, as though trying to clear it. Some of the poetry had to be getting through.

All of a sudden Rose remembered a poem by Emily Dickinson she had learned as a child, a poem she had always loved.

'_If I can stop one heart from breaking  
>I shall not live in vain<br>If I can ease one Life the Aching  
>Or cool one Pain<em>

_Or help one fainting Robin  
>Unto his Nest again<br>I shall not live in vain._'

'Yes! Brilliant!' The Doctor smiled at her. 'That's the ticket!'

Emily blinked; her eyes softened. 'That's so beautiful,' she whispered, turning to Rose. 'Who wrote that?'

'You did,' Rose replied, nonplussed. 'Oh—maybe you haven't yet—'

'What?' Emily frowned in confusion.

Rose looked straight into her eyes. 'We're time travellers, me and the Doctor. You met us today. Do you remember, Emily?'

Her expression cleared. 'Of course. The Time Lord and his companion. What are you doing here?'

'You're dreaming, Emily,' the Doctor said, crouching down beside her. 'None of this is really happening.'

'You don't have to be afraid any more,' Rose murmured, taking her hand. The dream all around them wavered like an image in water. The buzzing of the flies got louder.

'A dream...' Emily glanced about the hospital tent, then down at her lap, where bloodstains were fading out of the white fabric of her dress. 'This is a nightmare...'

The Doctor smiled kindly. 'That's right.'

'So that means the ghost will come back.'

'Ghost?' He looked slightly alarmed at her statement. 'What ghost?'

Rose gasped as the figure in white lace suddenly appeared beside them. It leaned close to Emily, seeming to stare intently at her even though it had no face. _How do you do, my dear,_ it cooed softly. Emily shuddered.

'It must have come back here because it was weakened by Emily realising she was dreaming,' the Doctor whispered to Rose. 'It's trying to make her afraid again!'

'Emily, listen to me,' Rose shouted. 'It's not a ghost! It's just trying to make you scared of it!'

'What are you?' Emily asked tremulously. The Vishklar merely cocked its head and made a wide sweeping gesture. The hospital tent and everything in it disappeared; they were in black space once more. The Vishklar glowed with ethereal light, and though it was small, it looked decidedly menacing.

It began to step softly in a circle around the three of them. Emily, Rose, and the Doctor warily tracked its movements. Abruptly, its form began to change; it grew taller and its pale lacy garment turned as dark as the void around them. The Vishklar was now a skeletal, hooded apparition with bony fingers and a long black robe.

Emily set her jaw. 'I am not afraid of death,' she shouted defiantly, though shakily. 'You can't frighten me with that appearance!'

_You do not fear your own death._ The Vishklar laughed, and the sound was like a faint gust of wind. _But I know what you do fear..._

In a flash of light, a vast field of tall grass appeared. The grass was withered and brown, seeming to extend for several kilometres in all directions. Indistinct human figures began to float down from the blue sky; they resolved themselves into Emily's mother and father, her brother Austin, Samuel Bowles, Lavinia, and a beautiful woman with dark hair holding a sleeping infant.

'Sue...' Emily's face went white. The woman's head turned toward them as she fell, and the Doctor and Rose could see that her eyes were large and sad. Her dark brown hair billowed about her as she twisted in midair. All of the bodies fell silently, one by one, among the blades of grass.

'What's happening?' Rose asked the Doctor worriedly. He began to shake his head in confusion.

He quickly grabbed Rose and held a protective arm about her when a sharp, icy wind came rushing over the meadow, carrying a dark fog. Silver tendrils extended from the mist and reached toward the places where the bodies had fallen. Above the roar of the wind, Rose could hear the faint sound of a baby crying.

From out of the grass, glowing white shapes arose and dissolved into the fog. The last one to be sucked away into the mist was the smallest shape—a tiny ghost. Rose shivered and knew that it was the soul of the infant in the dark-haired woman's arms. The wind ceased; a dead silence fell over the field. The sky was black and starless now.

_All things must die,_ murmured the Vishklar. _All the people you love... You can do nothing to save them..._

Emily shuddered, tears once more streaking down her face. But she remained straight-backed and resolute. 'This is only a dream. A dream!'

_The war is no dream,_ the hissing voice said. _Thousands will die... How do you know that your loved ones will not be among the fallen?_ The dead grass bent down in a sudden gale, revealing the bodies of hundreds of soldiers staring up at the pitch-black sky.

'No, Emily! They don't die,' the Doctor asserted. 'Your family and friends survive the war. I promise you that!'

_An empty promise,_ the Vishklar sneered. _He does not know._ Flames burst up around them, consuming the grass and the corpses in an orange inferno. _The country will burn... All will be lost..._

Emily set her jaw, her lips trembling, as the fire was replaced by torrents of cold water crashing around them that quickly coalesced into an ocean. Waves towered above Rose, Emily, and the Doctor, waiting to submerge them.

'Concentrate, Emily,' the Doctor said in an urgent whisper. 'Rose and I can't do anything here, but you can. Focus! Manipulate the dream!'

'I don't know how,' she said helplessly, panic in her eyes. 'I have always been powerless to stop my nightmares!'

'Emily,' Rose pleaded, 'if you don't fight against it, the Vishklar will get too strong. It'll trap you in here forever!'

'It'll make everyone in the world fall asleep,' the Doctor continued. 'All the humans on the planet—they'll all have nightmares until their bodies waste away. But you can stop it if you just concentrate. Fight it!'

'I can't!' Emily cried.

The waves crashed on top of them. Rose felt herself getting dragged down with the undertow; she coughed and spluttered, trying to keep her head out of the water, but she was sinking. Strong arms grabbed hold of her and dragged her to the surface. She gasped for breath and got her bearings. 'Thanks.'

The Doctor shook his sopping hair out of his eyes. 'I think Emily's safe. She can't drown in her own dream...'

Some distance away, they saw Emily's head pop out of the water. She didn't seem to be struggling to breathe or keep afloat, but she looked terrified. The Vishklar looked on silently, standing calmly on the heaving surface of the sea.

_Look at all of those you could not save,_ it intoned, pointing with a bony finger to the waves billowing around them. Ghastly faces appeared under the water, the faces of all of Emily's loved ones. Their eyes were clouded white, their cheeks hollow, their lips blue. Emily reached out her hands with a cry when the dark-haired woman and her baby appeared.

'Sue! Sue!'

_She is dead,_ the Vishklar said in sepulchral tones, _and her son as well. She killed herself after your brother died in battle..._

'It isn't true, Emily!' the Doctor yelled. Emily paid no heed.

_You have no hope left,_ the Vishklar whispered nastily. _I can taste it..._

'Hope,' the Doctor muttered frantically as he treaded water. 'Hope... she needs hope...'

'But she won't listen to anything we say to her!' Rose groaned, struggling to keep moving her arms and legs in the icy water. 'How can we convince her to have hope? It's like her hope just up and flew away!'

The Doctor's eyes widened. 'Rose... Rose, that's it! Birds, Emily loves birds. Oh, this is brilliant. _Emily!_'

Emily didn't turn to the Doctor; she was still staring miserably at the dead faces in the water. 'What?'

'A bird, Emily!' he bellowed at her. 'Picture a bird. That's your hope!'

She tilted her head, thinking. 'A bird... Are you saying that my hope has wings and claws and feathers?'

'Yes!' The Doctor beamed. 'Hope has feathers. Hope _definitely_ has feathers!'

'So hope is a bird...' Emily furrowed her brow in thought. 'A bird that lives inside of one's soul—'

'And it sings,' said Rose, catching on. 'It never stops singing.'

'It sings a tune, a tune with no words...' Emily's eyes were bright with an idea. 'Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul... And sings the tune without the words... And never stops—'

'At all?' Rose finished for her. Emily's eyes crinkled in a smile.

'Yes!' the Doctor shouted. 'Keep saying that!'

'Why?' asked Emily.

The Doctor kicked his legs agitatedly in the water. 'Just do it. It'll help!' Emily nodded and took a breath.

'_Hope is the thing with feathers—that perches in the soul,_' Emily and Rose repeated together. '_And sings the tune without the words—and never stops—at all—_'

'That's it! Good!' the Doctor encouraged them. 'Now Emily, come on, imagine the bird! Picture it!'

Emily continued to speak the verse in unison with Rose as she closed her eyes, tilting her head upward. A small brown bird with short wings slowly materialised above them.

'A wren,' the Doctor said admiringly, gazing up at it. 'Yes! Keep concentrating, Emily!'

Rose looked at the bird and saw that it was perfectly detailed. The brown feathers fading to white on its belly; the long beak; the beady eyes; the six tiny toes ending in claws—everything was exact, as though Emily had spent long hours looking at a particular bird and memorising its every feature. The wren was alive.

'_And sings the tune without the words—_' The wren opened its beak and began to sing.

At the first sound of the bird's shrill chirping, the Vishklar recoiled and snarled. With a wave of its arms, it blackened the sky and the sea and caused the wind to howl. The wren faltered in its song.

Rose grabbed Emily's hand and held it tightly. '_And never stops at all_—come on—'

The Doctor joined in the chant, gripping Emily's other hand as the sea began to subside around them. They stood on an island in the middle of the windstorm that the Vishklar hurled at them.

'_Hope is the thing with feathers—_'

'Sue and Ned, and Vinnie and Austin, and mother and father, and Mr Sam...' Emily murmured while the Doctor and Rose continued reciting the verse. 'They aren't going to die, are they?' The Doctor stopped and turned his face to her.

'Not for a long time yet,' he reassured her. 'They won't all live longer than you, but I hope you expected that.' Emily's lip quirked up.

The wren she had conjured sang louder; the sound pierced clearly through the dying wind. The Vishklar was shrinking and flailing as it was cut off from its source of energy. Soon it was no bigger than a puppy standing on its hind legs. The dream space was completely black and empty now, except for the singing wren.

'We did it!' Rose shouted happily.

_Why have you done this to me?_ the Vishklar whimpered. _I am so hungry... Let me taste your fear..._

The Doctor's eyes blazed. 'You've had enough.'

Emily strode forward with a dangerous scowl. 'I will make sure that you never haunt anyone's nightmares again, ghost.' It was still shrinking, turning into a fluid shape that would have fit inside a two-litre bottle. A small metal cage began to flicker into existence around the now tiny and wretched Vishklar, enclosing it along with the wren. It weakly threw itself at the bars of its prison, then crumpled to the cage's floor.

_No..._ it keened, letting out an eerie wail. The wren warbled in response.

With one last glare at the cage, Emily squared her shoulders, turned around, and walked away. The Doctor and Rose looked at the piteous Vishklar for a moment before following, leaving it and the still-singing bird behind in the dark.

* * *

><p>They had walked far enough that they could no longer hear the wren's song. Emily stopped and her expression softened. 'I am finally free. Free from the terror... You saved me.'<p>

'You saved yourself,' the Doctor corrected. 'We just watched.' Emily gave a small smile.

'Now how do we get out of here?' Rose asked, shivering in her wet clothing.

'You just have to wake up.' The Doctor shrugged. 'Should be easy now that you don't have a Vishklar controlling your sleep.'

Rose huffed. 'How do you wake up in a dream? Pinch yourself?' She tried it. 'Ow! Nope, didn't think that would work.'

'Maybe we should try simply closing our eyes and thinking ourselves awake,' Emily suggested.

'Wait, no! Rose, don't wake up yet!' the Doctor cut in urgently. 'I need you to help me get back to the TARDIS.'

'The TARDIS?' Emily looked bewildered.

'The—er—the way I got here,' he explained. 'My time machine.'

'What does it look like?' Emily asked curiously.

'Blue,' said Rose.

'Rectangular,' said the Doctor.

'It's got a little light on top, and a sign that says POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX,' Rose added.

Emily shook her head. 'How peculiar.' She gestured around them. 'We no longer seem to be inside my dream, so both of you are capable of manipulating the landscape now, yes?'

'Well, actually—' the Doctor began, then thought better of it. Emily had met time travellers and battled a monster today; she'd had enough of a shock without also learning that one of the aforementioned time travellers was an alien.

'I think,' said Rose, 'if I concentrate hard enough, I can shift the dream landscape to where we were before we ran into the Vishklar, back where that maze is.' The Doctor nodded at her to go ahead.

She stared hard into the blank distance. It didn't seem as though anything was happening, but suddenly a huge black wall rushed toward them—or they rushed toward it.

'_Molto bene,_' said the Doctor with a grin, rubbing his hands together. 'And now we just need a series of doors.'

Rose made the door appear just as she had done before. They walked through the front door of Rose's mum's flat thirteen times before finally reaching the centre of the maze. The TARDIS was waiting for them there.

Emily looked appraisingly at the TARDIS. 'Why, it doesn't appear at all how I would have expected.'

'Told you it was a blue box,' Rose said with a grin.

The Doctor pushed open the door. 'Want to have a quick peek?' he asked Emily, smiling playfully. She hesitated, brushing nervously at her dress before walking forward and stepping inside.

When she first entered, she gasped and her eyes went impossibly wide. Staring open-mouthed at the console, she clutched the Doctor's arm, but she didn't scream or faint as many others had done when first introduced to bigger-on-the-inside Time Lord technology.

Her eyes lit up with wonder. 'This... is the most beautiful, strange, and terrifying thing I have ever seen,' she said reverently.

There was a noise from the console, and Rose came around and skipped down the stairs. 'It is marvellous, isn't it?' she said to Emily.

Emily raised her eyebrows. 'How did you come to be over there? Weren't you just—' She looked behind her, outside the TARDIS, and saw no one there.

'I woke up,' Rose said with a grin. 'The TARDIS isn't part of the dream dimension, so my body can move around only in here. Out there was just my consciousness.'

Emily could only shake her head in amazement. 'How did you wake up?'

'Like you said. I closed my eyes and just concentrated on waking up. It helps if you think of it as falling asleep... but it's quicker than that.'

'I suppose this means it is time for me to take my leave, Doctor,' Emily said, taking a step back. 'When I awaken, I assume I will be back in my sitting room at the Homestead?'

The Doctor nodded, smiling. 'Emily, it's been brilliant meeting you.'

'Even though most of our interaction has occurred while we have been asleep?'

'I'd say so.'

'Emily,' Rose said, 'we never got the chance to tell you how much we love your poems.'

Emily looked startled. 'My poems? You have read them?' She narrowed her eyes at the Doctor. 'Do they get published in my name after my death?'

He shrugged. 'Some. The ones you included in letters to your friends and to your sister-in-law.'

She shook her head, laughing softly. 'How strange it is to speak with someone who knows what hasn't happened yet. You know everything about me, and yet I know nothing of you...' She curtseyed gracefully. 'Whoever you are, Doctor, it is an honour to have met you.'

'Honour!' The Doctor laughed. 'I'm a time traveller, not a king.' Emily smiled.

'I am also honoured to have met you, Rose Tyler,' she said with a small bow of her head. 'You give me hope for the women of the future.'

Rose waved to her as Emily stepped back out of the TARDIS. In the next moment, the woman closed her eyes and began fading away...

Emily opened her eyes to the sleepy sunlight of the Homestead's drawing room. She blinked, trying to remember what she had been dreaming about.

Lavinia stepped softly into the room. 'Emily! Your sleepiness must have infected all of us. Mother, father, the maids, the groundskeepers—we all just fell asleep in the middle of the day!' She looked about the room. 'Where have that Doctor and the French girl gone?'

'Oh...' Emily yawned and stood up. 'You mean they were really here? I didn't just dream that?'

'Of course they were really here.' Lavinia frowned. 'What's the matter?'

'Vinnie—I'm afraid. I don't know what's happened...'

Her sister gave her a quick hug. 'Come on, let's go upstairs. You can write about it. And maybe have a nice cup of soothing tea.' She coaxed Emily out of the sitting room, leading her to the stairs and calling for Eleanor.

Back in her room, sitting at her desk and looking out the window at the trees, Emily was still restless and tense from her half-remembered nightmare. She shook her head and fished for a scrap of paper and a pencil in the untidy desk drawer. As she haltingly began to write, trying to condense the contents of her racing mind into rhythmic lines of verse, she smiled wistfully at the sound of distant birdsong.

* * *

><p>Before leaving the Seretti dimension, the Doctor wanted to go find something in the TARDIS's library. Rose waited in the console room for twenty minutes—or was it only one minute? Anyway, it took a bloody long time to find anything in that library.<p>

The Doctor reappeared with a shout. 'Here it is!' He waved a book in the air; Rose saw that the bottom right corner had a large brown stain on it. 'The complete works of Emily Dickinson, edited by Jassa Oongl'var, copyright 3425.'

'The one you spilled coffee on?'

'That's the one.' The Doctor handed it to her.

Rose hefted the book, which was at least five hundred pages long. 'So all her poems are in here?'

'Yep. Every last one—even the ones that are only two lines.'

'But you just told her that only some of her poems were published. The ones she sent in her letters.'

He laughed. 'I couldn't very well tell her that her sister made public every single poem that was stuffed in her desk, could I? She might have wanted to hide them, or burn them!'

'Why?' Rose asked, taken aback.

'I think she must've written a lot of these poems only for herself,' the Doctor said, taking the book back from Rose and flipping slowly through the yellowed pages. 'She dedicated her life to creating them, binding them up in little booklets, rewriting them over and over again...' He let the book fall open to a page about a fifth of the way through. 'But she chose to show only a fraction of them to her friends and family. The ones that she kept to herself—maybe she wasn't satisfied with them. Or maybe she just wanted to keep them private.'

'She did seem to be a very private person.' Rose smirked. 'But definitely not mad.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Rose,' he said softly, 'I wanted you to look at this poem.' He pointed to a verse marked #314, and Rose bent down closer to read it.

_"Hope" is the thing with feathers—  
>That perches in the soul—<br>And sings the tune without the words—  
>And never stops—at all—<em>

'So she wrote it down!' Rose exclaimed. 'And she added to it...' She continued to read the poem, smiling wider at each line.

_And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—  
>And sore must be the storm—<br>That could abash the little Bird  
>That kept so many warm—<em>

_I've heard it in the chillest land—  
>And on the strangest Sea—<br>Yet—never—in Extremity,  
>It asked a crumb—of me.<em>

'It's so beautiful,' Rose said with a sigh, handing the book back to him. 'I'm glad we got to meet her.'

'So am I.' The Doctor smiled fondly at her, then walked to a small alcove and placed the book there to take back to the TARDIS's library later. 'Well, I'd say that our trip was overall a success. What d'you think?—_oof!_'

He was suddenly winded by a bone-crushing hug from Rose, who had launched herself at him so fast that he could have sworn she'd caused a small thunderclap in her wake. 'Thank you, Doctor. Thank you,' she mumbled into his shoulder.

Slightly nonplussed, he returned the hug. 'For what?'

'For taking me to meet Emily. And for saving the planet again, obviously.' She happily rocked back and forth in his arms. 'It's awfully sweet of you to keep doing that.'

'You were brilliant, too.' He reached up his hand to absently stroke her hair. 'And the planet probably isn't going to stay saved for long, you know. I wouldn't thank me too soon.'

'_You_ wouldn't thank you anyway,' Rose murmured, still squeezing him tightly. 'No one ever thanks you—that's why I have to do it. And at least that particular Vishklar won't be bothering the human race ever again.' She pulled back from him with a grin. 'So, now that our adventure's over... when are you ever going to take me to Barcelona?'

'Barcelona, eh? Let's go right now!' The Doctor grinned back at her and nimbly leapt over the railing. 'Or next week. Or in an hour, or yesterday, or five hundred years ago...'

She watched him run eagerly about the console. 'Any time will do,' she called. 'But if you have a suggestion for somewhere more interesting, we can go there first.'

'Somewhere more interesting!' He laughed gaily as he flipped switches and jabbed at buttons. 'I've plenty of suggestions. But we're in the TARDIS, my dear... There's plenty of time to go anywhere!'

Rose, beaming, held on tight in anticipation of the jolt of takeoff. The time rotor fired up and began its telltale pulse; the engines' thrumming intensified to a roar—and with a loud whoop of unrestrained joy, the Doctor pulled down on a lever and took them careening into the Vortex.

* * *

><p><strong>Fin<strong>


End file.
